When there’s a gap in digital marketing expertise in your business it can be difficult to determine the best course of action. Do you hire an in-house digital marketer or do you outsource the work to a digital marketing agency?
Obviously, there are pros and cons to each. Here are a few things to consider.
1. What’s it going to cost you?
When weighing up whether to get an in-house digital marketer or outsource the role to an external agency, it pays (literally) to look into the financial pros and cons of each. Not only in terms of which option would be more cost-effective, but the long-term financial value it will bring to your business.
If hiring a paid employee, you’ll need to consider the cost of the recruitment process (posting job ads, time spent sorting through applications and interviewing candidates), their salary, ACC levies and KiwiSaver contributions, training and development costs, any benefits they’re entitled to receive, equipment they need and office space.
These are things you won’t need to factor in when working with a digital marketing agency. The amount you pay will depend on how you’re billed. For instance, some agencies might get you to sign a contract for a twelve month period and charge you a monthly fee based on a set amount of deliverables. Others may work on a project basis and charge you a fee per campaign. It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll need a consistent amount of work each month or whether you want to work with the agency on an ad hoc basis as needed. With the latter, you can utilise them for specific campaigns or during busy periods so that you can save money when things are quieter.
Whether you hire in-house or outsource, here are a few tips to help you with digital marketing on a budget.
2. How much time will you need to invest?
If you’ve been trying to juggle the digital marketing of your business yourself while also trying to do all the other components of your job, then passing the baton to an in-house digital marketer will undoubtedly save you time. However, you will need to invest time initially in recruiting them, training them if they’re not familiar with your systems and processes, and then checking in with them regularly.
With a digital marketing agency, there’s also a time investment. You’ll need to have some initial conversations about your objectives and establish how the relationship is going to work, regular catch ups around strategy and implementation. However, because you’ve got a team of professional experts working on your digital marketing, they’ll be far more efficient at getting things done.
That being said, outsourcing to a digital agency will only save you time if the people you’re working with are on the same page and know their stuff. Do your research into digital marketing agencies in your area so you know what to look for.
3. What do you need?
It can be difficult to find a unicorn – a single person skilled in all facets of digital marketing. Even if you do find yourself a generalist, they may not have the time to do everything on their own, meaning you may still need to outsource things such as web design and development, copywriting or community management. A digital marketing agency can complement the work of your in-house team by covering high-level campaign strategy, leaving them to carry out the implementation. Alternatively, your team might have the experience to carry out strategy development, but need help executing tasks such as setting up ads, loading products onto the website and reporting on campaign performance.
Outsourcing everything to a digital marketing agency is another option, and one that will give you access to all the expertise you need in one place. Instead of one person juggling multiple tasks, you’ll have a team of people at your fingertips who are all experts in their specific areas, whether that be social media, digital strategy, web design or SEO.
Weighing up the time and financial cost of different options and determining what exactly you need help with will help determine the setup that will work best for your business.
The best thing to do is start somewhere, see how you go and change things up along the way if you need to. Have a chat to our friendly team about the different ways we can work together to improve your digital marketing.
